There’s nothing landlords love more than a good tenant. Having worked in residential and commercial property management early on in my career, I know this to be true. Tenants that didn’t give me headaches meant less hassle, including less letter writing for me. Good tenants meet their rent obligations on time, keep their premises clean and in good order, promptly let their landlords know when there is a problem beyond their responsibility (like a leaky roof), are good neighbours, and nary a complaint about them comes the landlord’s way. It should come as no surprise that how well a tenant meets his obligations is, quite often, proportional to the amount of “peaceful enjoyment” that tenant will receive. Peaceful enjoyment is a term found in most leases. It pretty much translates into not having a landlord constantly checking on this, asking about that, and dropping by unexpectedly to see if the property is being kept in good condition. So, wouldn’t it be better for all concerned if landlords could just sit back and relax, knowing their rental properties were in the hands of responsible people? We could say the same for our “rental” home here on planet Earth. As tenants, have we been as good as we could have been, as we should have been? I think not. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Rose Bird, former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, addressed our earthly situation most eloquently. “We have probed the Earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests, leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air. That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago.” If being human on this planet is such a rare blip on the geological scale, then why don’t we treasure our existence here? Why do we see our role as one of exploitation, instead of fitting into our world in balance and harmony? Our unhappy landlord, Mother Earth, has recently upped the frequency and intensity of her messages to us in the form of droughts and fires and floods. Could it be that our days of planetary peaceful enjoyment are over? If our current bad-tenant behaviour is not an equation for sustaining life on our beautiful blue planet, then we, as renters, better start changing our ways and fast, just as the latest reports on climate change suggest we do. Otherwise, I fear we risk eviction, instead of being offered a lease renewal. Resolving this new year to be good tenants is in our best interest. Follow Sheelagh @sheesays or visit www.ideagarden.net
